With Christmas being just around the corner, I wanted to share last year's Santa Visit to encourage other parents with crying, fit throwing toddlers (or older!) that they are not alone and they (both child and parent) will survive the oh so scary Santa visit!
Each year my daughter, Marlee visits and gets her portrait taken with the BEST Santa! First year was a piece of cake, our 6 month old was oblivious to any injustice done to her and the big man dressed in red with a white beard resembled her Papa so what's to be scared of? The next year, she was a little apprehensive and on the verge of tears, but she held it together and got a candy cane out of the deal!
2017, Year 3 of Santa Portraits:
My dear husband, my mom, and I travel about 45 minutes to a high end country club near Plano, Tx. I should probably mention if you don't already know that I am Misty Hoyt's (Photography by Misty) assistant. Okay so only members of the country club are invited to attend the Santa Portraits but since I am tight with the photographer, we squeeze my daughter in anyway. We all walk into the foyer, Marlee dressed in her best Santa Portrait outfit, and right when we turn down the hall towards our Santa destination, Marlee must have gotten a little motion sickness from the car ride over here and vomits all over the floor, her dress, my shoes, you get it. Thankfully the bathroom was very close and we tried to clean up ourselves as best as possible while my poor husband had to stand in the hall as other people (like members who are actually invited to the event) hold their noses as they pass by. It takes a good long while to get the floor cleaned up, not real sure why, maybe this was their first mess to be made on the floor. But by the time everything was cleaned up, Marlee was in good spirits again and ready to see this famous Santa she's heard so much about.
We get in to see Santa and Marlee instantly is not having it! Sit on this big man's lap? No way! Now you're bribing me with a candy cane? Nice try! In my head I'm thinking okay this isn't going to work, do we just not get pictures with Santa this year? So I ask Misty what she does in situations like ours and she said just put her on his lap and we'll get crying pictures, she'll be fine! I'm so glad that Misty told us to do that and snapped a bunch of crying, wriggling, trying to get free pictures! She was only on his lap for probably 30 seconds after all. I know we will all enjoy looking back at her Santa picture from 2017 and retelling the chaos that went on that day.
I'm curious what makes sitting on Santa's lap so scary to a tiny human, the idea of seeing Santa is always positive but actually seeing him is scary. It must be the outfit and beard. I'm also very curious what this year's visit will bring! Hopefully she is not scarred from last year and is past the crying phase and entering the shy, "I want a bicycle" answer when he asks what to bring her. We won't be going to a country club but will be visiting Santa at Heritage Farmstead's Lantern Light event December 8th this year! If you've never been to this event, check out their site, it is an awesome family event with tons of activities! Hope to see you there!
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